Converting Wisconsin youth prison to facility for adults to cost $14.2 million

Lincoln Hills School for Boys in Irma has been the subject of an investigation for three years focusing on a range of potential crimes at the juvenile prison, including second-degree sexual assault, physical child abuse, child neglect, abuse of prisoners, and intimidation of victims and witnesses.(Photo: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

MADISON - Closing the state's troubled youth prison and re-opening the facility in Lincoln County as a minimum-security adult prison will cost at least $14.2 million, the state Department of Corrections says.

The DOC in its 2019-'21 state budget request is seeking the funding and 261 employees to convert the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls juvenile prison into the Lincoln County Correctional Institution for 575 inmates by Jan. 1, 2021.

Lawmakers earlier this year passed legislation to shutter the youth prison, which has been the center of a number of federal lawsuits alleging guards violated the teen inmates' constitutional rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

The decision to close the prison also comes three years into a federal investigation into whether guards at the prison committed more than a dozen crimes, including abusing inmates.

The state and local county governments are planning to replace the youth prison with a handful of smaller facilities around the state, but it's unclear how many.

In its budget request, DOC said it's unknown at this point how many state-run facilities will be built. But to run one facility, the agency said it would need $1.2 million by 2020 and $10.5 million by 2021.

The Department of Corrections also is seeking to increase the amount counties will pay the state to house their most-serious juvenile offenders by 28 percent — or about 70 percent more than what the state charged in 2016.

The daily rate charged to counties will be set at $502 per inmate in the first year of the budget and $515 per inmate in the second year, should lawmakers and Gov. Scott Walker adopt the department's request. That's up from $390 and $397 during the last two-year budget, respectively.

The number of teen inmates at the state's youth prison in Irma has been decreasing, reflecting a nationwide trend. But after state and federal investigators began reviewing allegations of inmate abuse, sexual assault, official misconduct and other potential crimes, the rate at which juvenile offenders were sent to the youth prison plummeted.

DOC officials have said the higher rates pay for more security and mental health staff, but the higher costs for counties also reflect the fact that the state has fewer inmates from which to collect money.

Expanding Crime Labs

Attorney General Brad Schimel is seeking $1.6 million to hire 14 full-time employees to gather and test evidence at the State Crime Laboratories in order to keep up with the "ever-increasing volume" of evidence being submitted to the department.

In a nine-page letter to Department of Administration Secretary Ellen Nowak accompanying his budget request, Schimel said the resources of the State Crime Labs have not kept up with demand. Between 2015 and 2017, case submissions rose by 26 percent, Schimel said.

Schimel also requested pay progression for workers in the Crime Lab, which has experienced high turnover "due to market forces and insufficient pay flexibility to retain fully-trained scientists."